Why Your Next Board Member Should Be A Woman

Teaser:

Aileen Lee argues that by adding new blood to the boardroom, companies get a four-fer, or more: 1) gender diversity, and in most cases, age diversity around the table; 2) better understanding of core customers; 3) Social-Mobile-Local expertise and insight into digital platforms like Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Path, Square, Flipboard and Pinterest that are fundamentally changing business; and 4) hyper growth and rapid innovation DNA.

Why should we care? For one, women are the power users[8] of many products and it’s just smart business to have an understanding of key customers around the table. Could you imagine a game company without any gamers on the leadership team or board?

If you’re not aware, studies also show[9] companies with gender diversity at the top drive better financial performance on multiple measures – for example, 36% better stock price growth[10] and 46% better return[11] on equity. And, studies show the more women, the better the results. This is likely because teams with more females demonstrate higher collective intelligence[12] and better problem solving ability. So it’s probably not a coincidence the world’s most admired companies have more women on their boards than the average company.